Two pictures from the Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule that broke out on March 10, 1959 and was suppressed swiftly and brutally. These two show a Chinese officer addressing Tibetans after the uprising had been put down and refugees leaving in large numbers. The Guardian has a whole selection of...

Like the Irish, immigration is part of the Chinese psyche. Reading an article in Sina.com, I was reminded of one particular tranche of Chinese immigration: prior to, and during the handover of Hong Kong; a number of families chose to move to Canada and other countries. The families lived in places with large existing Chinese communities like Vancouver and the patriarch would often commute to do business back in Hong Kong. These commuters were nicknamed astronauts because they spent so much time in the air. A trend for the families of Chinese officials to conduct a similar kind of transplanted lifestyle has spawned a new term of ‘naked official‘. A number of officials whose families had emigrated abroad (presumably beyond the reach of the state) were subsequently convicted...

The Economist this week carries an excellent and in-depth look at gendercide, the term coined to describe the impact that the deliberate attempt to favour male babies over female ones has had on the male-female sex ratio throughout the world. It looks at the statistics, and what has caused such a skewing to occur, and what its impacts are and may be. There is a natural imbalance between boys and girls, with nature ensuring roughly 5% more boys are born than girls in order to compensate for boys being more susceptible to diseases as infants. Yet in many parts of the developing world, there is too much of a numerical gap between the sexes for it to be a natural phenomenon. The increasingly availability of ultrasound and abortion has played a big part in the skewing of the sex ratio, as it...

Officials concerned space flight might affect fertility of first Chinese women to go into orbitThey are, of course, in peak physical condition, with the flying skills required of any air force ace. But China's first female astronauts have faced an extra challenge: they had to be mothers to qualify for the country's prestigious space programme.Two women and five men have been selected as the next generation to go into space, a Hong Kong newspaper reported today, citing an unnamed military source.Xu Xianrong, an expert at the air force general hospital, said women had advantages as astronauts over men because they were more mentally stable, better able to bear loneliness and had better communication skills.The insistence that they should also be wives and mothers does not relate to their...

Wen Jiabao outlines increased spending on welfare and rural areas but warns global economic outlook remains uncertainThe Chinese premier Wen Jiabao today promised increased spending on welfare and rural areas, aiming to halt the growth of the gap between rich and poor, maintain stability and spur domestic demand.His annual policy speech set a steady course for the country — with a growth target of 8%, as in previous years — but left the government room for flexibility as he cautioned that the global economic outlook remained uncertain.China is reining back spending after last year's massive stimulus package, while seeking to maintain confidence at home and abroad. The 11.4% increase will take total spending to 8.45 trillion yuan (£800bn), but is less than half of last year's 24%...

Do get a Starbucks card if you are here for any length of time. It doesn’t charge like it does in the west and Hong Kong, instead it costs you 100 Yuan, but does provide you with vouchers and a discount on your order and they have free wi-fi in many of their coffee shops Bring a SIM-free mobile phone with you. There isn’t that much of a price differentiation between legitimate phones in China and the West - bringing one from home means that you will have English language instructions Do get a local PAYG SIM card. Many things in China are arranged over the phone. Having a local SIM card reduces the amount you will spend. I have a China Mobile SIM which gives me a Hong Kong number and a Chinese number. International calls on the card are from 1 yuan-a-minute If you are going to...

The west's moral didacticism now grates more than the realpolitik of China and the eastThere were chuckles and sniggers in Qatar last month when Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, warned that a military dictatorship was imminent in Iran. Threatening America's most intransigent adversary, Clinton seems to have been oblivious to her audience: educated Arabs in the Middle East where America's military presence has long propped up several dictators, including such stalwart allies in rendition and torture as Hosni Mubarak.Of course, by her own standards, Clinton was being remarkably nuanced and sober: during the presidential campaign in 2008 she promised to "obliterate" Iran. An over-eager cheerleader of the Bush administration's serial bellicosity, Clinton exemplifies Barack Obama's...

First Siberian tiger found in wild for 20 years raises questions over handling of claims of rediscovered wild animals in ChinaThe first Siberian tiger cub to be found in the wild in China in at least 20 years has died less than two days after being discovered, the Guardian has learned.Authorities have moved covered up the death, which casts a shadow over what is potentially the best conservation news the country has had for decades.It also raises questions about the handling and timing of the discovery, which comes as China celebrates the start of the lunar year of the Tiger and a major financial push to save the biggest cat on the planet.Early on the morning of 25 February, Han Deyou, a forester in the Wanda mountains in the northern province of Heilongjiang claimed to have discovered a...

From the Pyramide du Louvre to Qatar's Museum of Islamic Art...

Attention Apple users! You probably think you’re so smug don’t you, with your iPods and your iPhones and your this and that and the sleekly-designed other. Well you’re not. Because all of your aesthetically-pleasing gizmos are built by CHILD SLAVES! Yes, they’re ALL assembled in Far Eastern caves by 999 blind nine-year-olds who work at lightning speeds for fear of getting a good hiding from the riding crop of the evil henchman who runs the gaff. Suicide rates are at an all-time high and work-related stress statistics are so huge that they cannot be accurately measured. And all of this so that you can play Peggle on your frigging iPhone on the bus to work in the mornings. Still feeling smug are you? Well? A crying child, yesterday Of course, we’ve exaggerated just a smidgeon...

China has objected to the way President Obama ties his shoes, it emerged today. Beijing insists that the knots tied by the commander-in-chief are ‘just too showy’, and condemned his practice of leaving one lace longer than the other. ‘The President is being deliberately provocative to us,’ said Mr Sing Song Woo, the diplomatic advisor to the Chinese cultural attaché in Baltimore. ‘He flouts Chinese custom purely to irritate us.’The situation has escalated considerably from an incident last May, when President Obama was accused of looking at the Chinese flag ‘the wrong way’ when entering the United Nations building in New York. The President had apparently blinked at the flag during a hailstorm as he transited between Limousine One and the...

It looks like the aftermath of an earthquake - but it is a state-of-the-art training centre for China's fast-growing international search and rescue squadDan ChungTania Branigan...

Pascal Lamy, head of World Trade Organisation, reveals fall in trade flows as he urges members to revive Doha trade talksGlobal trade flows contracted by a catastrophic 12% in 2009, the fastest pace since the second world war, Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organisation revealed today, as he urged its 153 member countries to breathe new life into the ailing Doha trade round.This latest estimate is considerably worse than the WTO's previous forecast of a 10% decline for last year, underlining the hefty costs of the financial crisis for the world economy.Lamy said there were early signs that trade was now recovering, but it was not yet clear whether the upturn would last. "Certainly there is a pick-up. Whether this pick-up is short term ... or whether this is sustainable...

China faces struggle to feed population as pollution and urbanisation threaten supply, says government expertThe quality of China's overworked, polluted and artificially fertilised soil needs to be protected or the country could struggle to grow enough crops for the 300 million to 400 million people who will move from the countryside to the city over the next 30 years, a senior government adviser warned today.Han Jun, an expert on rural policy at the Development Research Centre, said maintaining food security was a major challenge in the process of urbanisation as farmers moved off their fields and into cities, where the consumption of meat, grain and diary products was higher.In the next three decades, he predicted the share of urban residents in China's population would rise from 47% to...

Education ministry accuses British charity's Hong Kong branch of having hidden political agendaChina is telling schools to shun the British aid agency Oxfam and bar its campus recruitment efforts, accusing the charity's Hong Kong branch of having a hidden political agenda.School administrators must ban all campus volunteer recruitment run by the group's Hong Kong office, according to a notice attributed to the education ministry.Oxfam Hong Kong – which oversees the group's mainland China operations – is a "non-governmental organisation seeking to infiltrate our interior", said a notice attributed to the ministry seen today on a job services website hosted by Beijing's Minzu University.It called the group's chairman, public affairs consultant Lo Chi-kin, a "stalwart of the opposition...

Investigators said to have linked suspected author of computer code used in attacks to Chinese officialsInvestigators are closing in on the source of internet attacks that hit a string of US companies, most notably Google.Over the weekend, two Chinese schools linked to the attacks – which hit dozens of companies in an attempt to steal private information and trade secrets – denied their involvement. Reports last week suggested that the source of the strikes had been traced to Shanghai Jiaotong University and the Lanxiang School, a large vocational training centre in Jinan.Today a report in the Financial Times suggests that US officials have tracked the individual they believe authored the computer code used, and have linked his work to Chinese officials.The Chinese state news agency...

Chinese New Year gives city resident Sarah Keenslyside the opportunity to sample the tastiest street snacksDan Chung...

US ambassador summoned in Beijing but no retaliation threatened as countries play down friction in Sino-US relationsBeijing today summoned the US ambassador to complain about Barack Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama, state media reported.The foreign ministry also demanded that Washington act to improve ties, warning in a statement that the US president's meeting had "grossly violated norms governing international relations".But China did not threaten retaliation of any kind and its response was relatively measured, reflecting the low-key nature of the event and the fact that Obama's predecessors also met the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.The move comes amid tensions between the two countries over issues including arms sales to Taiwan, trade, tackling nuclear proliferation and internet...

Chinese authorities have not commented on NY Times reports that intelligence has linked the hacking strikes to two schoolsA spate of internet attacks that hit Google and other companies have been traced to two schools in China, according to reports – but Chinese sources have responded by denying knowledge of the strikes.According to the New York Times, security experts investigating a string of hacking attacks on American companies have been linked back to their origins in mainland China.The story, which quoted anonymous sources close to the investigation, said that the so-called Project Aurora attacks appeared to originate from Shanghai Jaio Tong University and the Lanxiang Vocational School in Shandong province.Jaio Tong is well regarded as a centre for computer studies, and has an...

President expresses 'strong support' for Tibetan way of life in meeting that risks damaging US-China relationsBarack Obama expressed "strong support" for the Tibetan way of life when he saw the Dalai Lama at the White House today, a meeting that risks further damaging US-China relations.The visit was as muted as the White House could manage in an effort to minimise offence to the Chinese government, which had called on the president to cancel the meeting.The Dalai Lama, speaking afterwards, said he was very happy with the meeting and that Obama had been "very much supportive". He said Obama had shown genuine concern for Tibet.He was in a playful mood as he left the meeting, drawing patterns in the heaps of snow outside the White House and flicking some at waiting reporters, his jollity...

Residents living close to Dalai Lama's birthplace in China are delighted US president Barack Obama will meet spiritual leaderTibetans living close to the Dalai Lama's birthplace in northwest China have heralded his meeting with Barack Obama with a midnight display of fireworks.The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader remains widely revered in his homeland and residents said they were delighted that he will meet the US president in Washington today. Beijing has warned the event would hurt Sino-US ties."My heart is filled with joy," said a beaming monk, Johkang, as he stood near his monastery. "It is so important for us that this is happening, that the US has not given in to threats and will meet our leader," the lama told Reuters.Chinese state media has condemned Obama's decision and other...

Dalai Lama's visit to the US threatens to further damage shakey relationship with ChinaPresident Barack Obama is to go ahead with talks with the Dalai Lama at the White House tomorrow in spite of the risk of further inflaming US-Chinese relations, currently at a low ebb.The White House is keen to make the meeting as low-key as possible and declined to say today whether a decision had been taken over whether to televise the initial exchanges.The meeting comes after weeks in which tension has grown between the countries over the increasing trade imbalance and a proposed US sale of military equipment to Taiwan.China, which opposed the meeting between Obama and Tibet's spiritual leader, has hinted at reprisals, as it has done against other world leaders who have met the Dalai Lama, and...

The move means that Japan, which boosted its purchases, is once again the largest overseas holder of American securitiesChina relinquished its position as the largest overseas holder of US treasury bonds by selling $34.2bn (£21.7bn) worth of the securities in December, according to new treasury figures.The move means that Japan, which boosted its purchases, is once again in the top spot. China's sale contributed to a record drop in foreign holdings of short-term bills: in all, net overseas holdings of bills fell by $53bn. The previous record was $44.5bn in April last year.But overall, the US saw a net inflow of $60.9bn as investors bought longer-term securities.Analysts are divided on the significance of the Chinese shift. Some see it as a typical switch back to riskier assets as...

China South City is a complex just outside Pinghu, Shenzhen that allows manufacturers to showcase their wares. Think Hannover Messe but as a full-time stand. It is populated with paper salesmen, pallets of raw plastic from chemical companies, fabrics companies and factories that churn out garments and accessories. Many of the halls look like Smithfields market on steroids, but the newest building which opened up a couple of months ago here looks like the mother-of-all-shopping-malls lies empty. Is this multi-storey behemoth a white elephant? I don’t know, if they can keep it open long enough I think it will fill up with vendors over time. In addition to the real-world options for networking and customer education, China South City also provides an online marketplace for the...

Chinese authorities tell US human rights group that Gao Zhisheng, missing for more than a year, is in UrumqiA Chinese lawyer missing for more than a year is in Xinjiang, in the far west of the country, a human rights group has been told.The case of Gao Zhisheng, one of China's most daring lawyers, has drawn international attention for the unusual length of his disappearance and for his earlier reports of the torture he said he faced from security forces.The Dui Hua Foundation, a US-based human rights group, said it had been told by the Chinese embassy in Washington that Gao was working in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang region.John Kamm, the executive director of the foundation, said the news was a "tentative step in the right direction toward accountability", but many questions still...

It may well be Valentines Day but it is also Chinese New Year, so as we enter the year of the Tiger let's look at what I said last Chinese New Year.Then I looked at some of those that were sentenced under the crime of subversion. Just before this new year another sad tale is added to the list Liu Xiaobo who lost his appeal earlier this week against a eleven year sentence for...

Solar and lunar mismatch means weddings have been brought forward to avoid marrying in a 'widow year'It sounds like the ideal date to begin a lifetime together: in a rare alignment, on Sunday the Chinese new year falls on Valentine's Day. But for many couples in China there is nothing romantic about the approaching year of the tiger.Anxious couples have been hastening to tie the knot before the day arrives, concerned that the mismatch between solar and lunar calendars has produced a "widow year", associated with infertility.The association of certain dates with good or ill fortune has deep roots in Chinese culture, although it was shunned under Mao Zedong. Now, say experts, such beliefs are flourishing again.On Wednesday - the most auspicious day this week, according to almanacs - almost...

Tibet controversy intensifies tensions in Sino-US relationsChina urged the United States to immediately cancel plans for President Barack Obama to meet the Dalai Lama next week, warning that the move could further hurt ties between the two countries.A foreign ministry spokesman, Ma Zhaoxu, issued the remarks hours after Washington announced that Obama would meet the Tibetan spiritual leader at the White House on 18 February.China accuses the Dalai Lama of pushing for Tibetan independence, which the Dalai Lama denies, and believes that shunning the exiled Tibetan monk should be a basic principle of international relations. Obama has been under intense pressure to meet the Dalai Lama after postponing a meeting in October."We urge the US side to fully understand the high sensitivity of...

If you are like me you probably have some favourite platforms that you find useful for your online life. This is a list of what I found worked and didn’t work during my time in China. I thought that it would be handy to know, so that if you were visiting you could put surrogate services in place to continue your online life. Works well Flickr - both Uploadr and the site work just as well as they work at home Delicious - again just works as well as you would expect it to at home Google - seemed to work fine, though this may change because they haven’t been the best corporate citizen in China recently. Interestingly, typing Google.com took me directly through to the US site rather than their usual trick of geo-targeting and loading up their local country portal instead - which...

Poor state of US-Chinese relations hinders Barack Obama's push for sanctions over Tehran's uranium productionThe US was today spearheading a diplomatic campaign to overcome ­Chinese opposition to further sanctions aimed at Iran and its Revolutionary Guards in a renewed push following Tehran's decision to ­produce uranium almost six times more ­enriched than its existing stockpile.Barack Obama said yesterday that his administration was "developing a significant regime of sanctions that will indicate to them [Iran] how isolated they are from the international community as a whole".Those sanctions will target a wide range of business interests belonging to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, which is accused of running a covert weapons programme behind the front of a ­civilian nuclear industry,...

• Beijing alleges industrial espionage and bribery• Four have been held in China since July 2009China dramatically raised the stakes with Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto today when it charged four of the company's employees with industrial espionage and bribery.The move will also increase tension between Beijing and Australia because one of the employees is an Australian national, as well as cast a cloud over iron-ore price negotiations between China and western mining companies.The four Rio staff were detained last July and are being held in a prison in Shanghai. They are accused of using improper means to obtain commercial secrets from the country's steel industry and using that information to increase the price that China pays for its iron ore imports.China's Xinhua state...

Sebastian Wood, our new Ambassador, is just back from Shanghai, the first of his 8 cities in 88 days.   If you go to the UK in China website, you can see him on the front page, by our Shanghai pavilion as it takes shape.  It is changing fast - there is already a big difference to the photo I posted on this blog three weeks ago.    If you click on the story, you can also follow Sebastian's progress round China on an interactive map. He has been active in Beijing, too - calling on key Ministries, and meeting opinion formers across a range of issues.  He has also started to meet some of the extraordinary Brits in China - see the photo below, and our website front page for some of their stories....

The Times reports a sign of China’s increasingly hard line against dissent. Activist Tan Zuoren has been jailed for five years after he investigated whether shoddy construction contributed to deaths of thousands of schoolchildren in an earthquake in Sichuan province two years ago.However the charges related to involved “inciting subversion of state power” because of essays in which he criticized the bloody crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.Friends and his lawyers believe that Mr Tan’s efforts to document and produce an independent report on the collapse of school buildings in the Sichuan earthquake in May 2008, when some 90,000 people died, were the real reason for the sentence.The sentence against Mr Tan was the maximum possible for...

Groundbreaking government survey pinpoints fertilisers and pesticides as greater source of water contaminationFarmers' fields are a far bigger source of water contamination in China than factory effluent, the Chinese government revealed today in its first census on pollution.Senior officials said the disclosure, after a two-year study involving 570,000 people, would require a partial realignment of environmental policy from smoke stacks to chicken coops, cow sheds and fruit orchards.Despite the sharp upward revision of figures on rural contamination, the government suggested the country's pollution problem may be close to - or even past - a peak. That claim is likely to prompt scepticism among environmental groups.According to insiders, the release of the groundbreaking report was delayed...

• Cost cuts and focus on emerging markets helps carmaker return to black• Firm predicts full-year profits of ¥35bn after huge losses last yearWhile its rival Toyota struggles to contain the fallout from the recall of millions of defective cars, Nissan today reported a return to profit in the last quarter and said it expected to end the full year in the black thanks to strong sales in China.Japan's third biggest carmaker said its net profit totalled ¥44.9bn (£322m) between October and December, compared with an ¥83.1b loss a year earlier.It now expects profits of ¥35bn for the year to the end of March, having earlier projected losses of ¥40bn.Last year Nissan, which is 44% owned by Renault, suffered losses of ¥233.7bn yen, but has clawed its way back to profit by cutting costs...

Tan Zuoren jailed over Tiananmen Square article but supporters say detention owing to research into death of pupils in quakeA Chinese activist who investigated the deaths of children in schools that collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake was today jailed for five years for subversion, his lawyer said.The court in Chengdu sentenced Tan Zuoren over comments he made in online articles about the violent crackdown on Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. But he and his supporters believe he was detained owing to his research into the deaths of thousands of pupils. Charges related to his investigation were ignored in the verdict."The court was very smart. They took out any mention of the earthquake from the verdict because they are afraid of referring to it," said his lawyer, Pu Zhiqiang.The quake in...

Chinese government, World Bank and NGOs co-operating on multimillion-dollar scheme to protect Amur tigerTaking turns to act as human ploughs, Liang Jianmin and his tiger survey team forge through mile after mile of knee-deep snow in the mountain forests near China's frozen mountain border with Siberia.From dawn to dusk they track, ­looking for droppings, paw prints, bark scratchings, scraps of fur caught on twigs and fences, any sign that the Amur tiger – the biggest cat species in the world – is still alive in the wilds of China.Elsewhere in Hunchun, other teams scour the slopes and valleys near the North Korean border, while in Russia, zoologists and conservation groups trudge through the taiga forest with the same goal: measuring the scale of the challenge facing the most...

• Retaliation threatened after arms sales to Taiwan• Beijing ready to stand alone over Iran sanctionsChina signalled its intent to pursue a more assertive foreign policy, saying "a fifth of mankind" had a right to be heard, and stating its opposition to the west on a range of issues.The country's foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, threatened retaliation for American arms sales to Taiwan, and made it clear that China was prepared to stand alone among the permanent members of the UN security council in opposing sanctions against Iran.He insisted Iran had not closed the door on negotiations over the export of its uranium, and called for patience and "a more flexible, pragmatic and proactive policy" towards talks with Iran.Speaking at a global security conference in Munich, Yang also rejected...

Internet groups fear alliance means US government could access personal informationGoogle's decision to enlist the help of the National Security Agency in tackling cyber attacks has caused alarm among internet groups and bloggers, who fear that users' personal information could be accessed by the US government.The Washington Post reported yesterday that the internet giant had turned to the NSA, which conducts surveillance and codebreaking for the federal government, in the wake of a cyber attack it believes came from China.The agency is responsible for securing the US administration's computer networks against similar breaches, and is said to be helping Google to understand and analyse the attacks.Sources say that the agreement will not allow the NSA to view users' searches or access...

Li Yousheng was a familiar figure on the streets of Changsha in Hunan, China. “Legless” Li, who appeared to be paralysed from the waist down, would propel himself from place to place lying face down on a skateboard. A framework he had constructed around the skateboard supported a stereo system above him through which he played music intended to make people sad and depressed (Barry Manilow, Cliff Richard ??? ) From the amount of cash visible in his begging bowl in the pic, he was making a fair living despite his disability. And he won’t have to worry about having a roof over his head now either – the Chinese government is offering him accommodation. Following a tipoff from an investigative journalist, “Legless” Li has been arrested and charged with...